All small to medium businesses (SMB) reach a point where their challenges and opportunities outstrip their internal capabilities. This is where they seek outside resources. When selecting outside resources, such as consulting companies, ad agencies, and organizational development services, the fundamental question should revolve around the process the organization uses to produce results. And the way to phrase this question is as follows: “What have you published and who do you follow that will demonstrate to me how you propose to produce the results we expect?”

The reason why this is the fundamental question is that results are produced through process, and the Web has made access to enormous amounts of rich, valuable content that discusses process or “how to get results.” In this digital age of transparency, there should be no tolerance of “black box” solutions.

Here is an excellent list of small business trends for the business owner to seriously consider for 2010. Find the full article in Small Business Trends here.

1. Greater emphasis on cloud computing vs. local hardware.
2. DIY Marketing grows
3. Green is the color of business
4. Give a personality to your business
5. Prepare for mobile customers
6. Optimize your website for local traffic
7. Grow with government contracting
8. Improve SEO expertise
9. Listen to your customers to new business ideas
10. Prepare to service more sole proprietorships

According to Joe Pulizzi at junta42, 6 in 10 marketers will spend more in 2010. Significant for small businesses is their relatively larger emphasis on content marketing. Get his full post and a link to his whitepaper.

Bill Slawski’s recent post Web Self-Help for Small Business is a list of 12 topics the small business owner needs to seriously consider. His list (with specific to-dos and links) includes accessibility, analytics, business, communication, customer service, coding, design, internet law, marketing, SEO, usability, and writing. If you would like to pursue this further, consider marketing vision and execution as additional topics.

Add this comment from the Friesen Group to the prior post on “Selling or Asking?”

“…complex questions are meant to create dialogue and discussion. They provoke people to search for the answer and learn along the way. They stimulate other important questions. They can’t be answered once-and-for-all, but keep showing up over and over again. They require re-thinking assumptions and prior lessons.”

See the entire post.

There’s a very interesting discussion in the SalesLab group on LinkedIn. Started by Ramachandra Bandekar, it asks if you believe that selling is the most important skill you can develop. Here’s an insightful comment by Patrick Coleman:

Actually, ASKING, is the most important skill one can develop. What many “sales professionals” fail to understand is that Asking IS Selling. Asking questions is how you begin to ENGAGE another person- and I mean this in any relationship: business, personal etc. You need to establish some connection with someone in order to develop a relationship. This goes way beyond asking questions to uncover ‘product’ needs or ‘pains’ which is now becoming obsolete…

I am successful because my questions are engaging, they are most likely questions they never heard before, and questions my competition don’t use- this is what makes me different.”

Questions are a fundamental part of the Kraft approach to Sales Management, and Patrick articulates its importance very well. What approach do you use?

Each business has its own unique story. But one thing that all small business owners have in common is the need to wrap their hands around the total enterprise: where it is, where it’s going, and how to get there. One effective way to accomplish this is to think of the four cornerstones of a small business:

1. People
2. Management Process
3. Assets & Resources
4. Money

People refers to having the right person in the right place. This cornerstone includes a consideration of leadership development, staff training, and all the skills involved in interviewing and evaluation.

Management Process refers to effective decision-making and taking action. Included in this cornerstone are business strategy and creating a motivating environment.

Assets & Resources, beyond plant and equipment, includes such intangibles as corporate competencies, brand image, and databases.

Money, from the standpoint of general business consulting, refers to how it is allocated and the return calculated in such areas as media, presentation materials, web development, content generation, as well as salaries.

Though simple, this four cornerstone approach is far from simplistic, and provides a user-friendly framework to managing the small business.

Value stream analysis is part of the core Kraft practice of  profit chain management. This external article provides an overview of 5 activities that provide value.

The competitive crowd, especially in a recession, generally turns to a lowest-price strategy, fighting each other to offer the lowest price. Of course, some level of price reduction may be required by every company. But the lowest price doesn’t always win. The economics of price reductions, since they remove gross profit and not cost, are such that breaking even requires a much higher percentage of customer increase (perhaps as much as two to three times) than the percentage of price reduction.

Consider alternative pricing strategies. This article provides a good introduction.

How do you get someone you don’t know to help you? Use the telephone, right? Not according to Josh Bernoff, Co-author of Groundswell.

Send a personal email. Josh points the way in this post.

What’s the relevance to business owners? Simply this- communicating in a Web 2.0 world is different.